Pillow Talk
by Pompey
Summary: A collabortation with Chewing Gum. On their wedding night, Watson and Mary discuss former loves. Rated "T" for consensual lack-of-clothing among married adults and certain implications. Tried to keep things tasteful. Complete.
1. Wedding Night

The reception was over. Our wedding was several hours in the past. Tomorrow was the official beginning of our honeymoon. In the meantime, we still had to make it through tonight, here in our hotel room in Southsea.

Mary had removed her hat and the jacket of her light grey traveling suit, the eggshell blue of her blouse complimenting her eyes. Now she sat stiffly on the arm chair and looked at me expectantly, hands crossed and demeanour suppressed. For all our jovial small talk earlier, we were both terribly ill at ease with the awkwardness of the situation.

"What have you been told?" My question was sudden and unexpected but I needed to know how much she knew. Above all, I did not want her frightened or hurt. The last thing I wished to do was begin our marriage with my wife (and oh, how odd it felt to think I had one!) coming to despise me.

Mary was startled, entirely expected, but she answered quietly and swiftly, for which I gave her great credit. "We were told at boarding school that it is a husband's right and it is a wife's duty to submit. Women must learn to tolerate it, and that it is less painful after the first time." She glanced at me to gauge my reaction, seeking affirmation or rejection of the dominating act she had described to me.

For my part, I was unsurprised but still dismayed at the fatalistic resignation young women were expected to take on. I had known from the moment I loved the intelligent, strong woman in the eggshell blue blouse before me that our marriage would never be one of suppression and I was about to tell her so. Then Mary smiled slightly and a faint blush bloomed in her cheeks.

"But before I left for England my _ayah_ told me that there is no greater earthly delight than mutual desire between a man and a woman, and that there is pleasure for both, if they love each other. She told me I would understand when I was grown." Her blush deepened but she met my eyes frankly, another credit to her unwavering spirit. "I do love you."

"And I you."

Her gaze grew more intense, practically searching my own spirit, perhaps for cracks but I liked to believe it was for affirmation of my words. "And do you desire me? As a man desires a woman?"

"Yes," I said, simply. I would not have chosen to volunteer this information on my own but she _had_ asked. I could not lie to her nor could I deny the desires that had been burnt into the minds of men (and women, despite what many believed) since the beginning of time.

Mary nodded, as though she had reached a decision firm and unshakeable as a stone foundation. "Well, then."

There was a long, painfully awkward silence, which at last she broke to my great relief. "Now what do we do?" Such a directing question and yet so numbingly vague.

I realized, belatedly, that she still waited to follow my lead. "I'm so sorry," I stammered. "I've never been married before." Then the absurdity of my statement struck us both and we laughed helplessly. It may have been from nerves but it was still a welcome release. I collapsed into the chair next to Mary's, while she wiped away tears of laughter.

"Well, it's true," I protested feebly, trying to contain my mirth with limited success.

"I've never been married either," Mary giggled, a beautiful sound that was beginning to relax my taut nerves. "And anyway, you have more experience with such things than I."

"I beg your pardon!"

"I mean no offence," she offered, still smiling broadly, "but really, John. You are older than I, and a doctor, and a former soldier. You cannot convince me you have no experience with women, not after you have traveled over many nations and three separate continents."

"That depends on what you mean by 'experience,'" I replied, still mildly stung by her unintentional insinuations. "I like to think I am hardly the callous Lothario you imply."

Her smile grew more tender. "I didn't mean to imply that at all. When I say 'experience' I meant also any observations or beliefs you picked up along the way."

"There is still not much to tell," I admitted, wondering if she had expected a grand romantic tale full of pirates and treasure and such, peppered with women who always wore their hair down both literally and figuratively. "Half my world travels I accumulated before the age of twelve. My father was an international cartographer; he brought my brother and me along on his journeys until our early teens."

Mary gave me a knowing look that reminded me a bit of a schoolteacher or a nanny who knew her charge was telling but half the truth. "Do you mean to say there were no shy, schoolboy kisses stolen from some native maid?" she teased.

I found myself blushing despite my resolve. "I had not thought I would spend my wedding night discussing former loves."

"So there was a girl or two!" she laughed triumphantly.

"There may have been," I admitted, but could not resist adding, "but what of you? There are no schoolgirl crushes in your past?"

She blushed again, and I was glad I was not alone with my blood-rushed cheeks. "There may have been," she replied, throwing my words back at me but in jest.

"Who was he?"

"Who was she?"

"I asked you first."

"John, you sound worse than my former charges!" Mary exclaimed. I grinned at that and eventually she smiled back, amiable and more than game. "Oh, very well. I will tell you who gave me my first kiss if you tell me who gave you yours."

"Agreed."


	2. Isha

CHAPTER TWO: MARY'S POV

Many of the girls I met in boarding school who had been brought up on foreign soil seemed almost ashamed and regretful of the fact. I, on the other hand, have always been thankful for my early years in India. I was the kind of girl, and am now the kind of woman, who enjoys knowing all she can.

Perhaps that was one of the things that drew me to John; not only was he travelled, but thanks to his relationship with the great detective Sherlock Holmes, he was far better at deducing things than he gave himself credit for.

Because I grew up in India, many of my earlier stories are set there, as was the one John wished to hear from me now. So many proper British ladies would swoon to hear my first childish spark of romance was for a nut-brown Indian boy, but I doubted my John would be so shocked. Perhaps a little jealous, but not shocked.

"Well..." I began, my hands folding in my lap so that I would not fidget with them. This was a bit harder than I thought it would be; hours ago I had pledged my eternal love to the man now watching me intently and now I was to relate love that occurred far before him. "I suppose it all starts in India. My father was stationed there to oversee the colonies, and you know my mother died shortly after my birth. My _Ayah_ was my main keeper, but she had the belief that the world was made far before books and you could learn much more from the former than the latter."

How many letters had my late mother's family sent demanding that I be provided with a good, firm, British nanny? I suppose as many as ended up in my father's rubbish bin. I had a British tutor to make me learn my lessons from books, but my _Ayah_ was the one who opened the curtains once the lessons were done and taught me what was useful. Arithmetic was all well and good, but it would not teach you which thorns could poison you.

"As such, I spent a great deal of time outside. My relatives back home would purse their lips at how dark I'd become because of it once I returned home, but when I was eleven that time was a hundred years away. And my tanning did fade away eventually."

Not before all the girls at my boarding school had teased me for it, of course. There was another girl fresh from India in my year and I had hoped to forge a friendship with her, but she was a bone-white and almost sickly creature who had seen no more of the beautiful country than she could from her bedroom window. So until the girls had found a new pastime, I had buried myself in my books. They were more interesting than most of the silly creatures in that school.

"My father's closest servant was a man named Aseem. He was the only man he trusted fully to translate Indian for him until he caught onto it himself and who lived with us. Aseem's eldest son Isha lived with us, too, and was my age. He tended to the hens mostly, but he was such a clever boy that whenever something was broken, they would ask him to poke at it before paying someone to. He could usually fix it, too."

I could see the boy now; a bit smaller for his age, perhaps even a hair's width shorter than myself at the time. Shining dark eyes that took in everything around him and black hair that was never entirely neat no matter how much he combed. Brown skin, sun-darkened and usually scratched from his adventures through the thick foliage, seeking nothing but enjoyment. One of the most honest smiles I have ever known.

"My father had just bought me a book on the flowers of India and Isha and I were looking over it together. He could speak English as well as his native tongue, but he could read neither out of pure stubbornness. He had a younger brother in school; he claimed one educated boy in the family was enough. Well, he took one look at those black and white drawings and he claimed it was an outright blasphemous thing to trap flowers on a page in such a lifeless way."

There had been that silly passion in his voice when he declared this; someone who did not know him would think him serious, but it had sent me into giggles.

"I told him that these drawings were not as good as the real thing, but that they were the closest thing most people could get to seeing them. He said that he could lead me to any flower in the book, and so I thumbed to the page with the Himalayan tulips – "

John interrupted me for the first time. "Himalayan tulips? I've never heard of such a thing! And they're native to India?"

I smiled, feeling very much like a teacher with a delightfully eager student. "Most people believe tulips come from Holland, but they actually began in the Middle East and central Asia. Himalayan tulips were a wild strain, and they don't look very much like tulips at all. Not the ones we know. They are more like tiny daffodils with rounded leaves, a flower within a flower. They are hard to describe."

The drawing had made them look beautiful, and it was odd to think that something that looked so delicate could grow in the untamed jungles without the intervention of human hands. To see one growing in the wild... I had thought it almost impossible, and I so loved to prove Isha wrong. I rarely did, however, and that time was no exception.

"In any case, I challenged him to find me one by tomorrow. I expected him to pick it and bring it back to me. Imagine my surprise when he waited outside my door until my lessons were finished and told me to follow him into the jungle."

John was smiling; apparently he _could_ imagine it. "Well, if he had picked it, it wouldn't have been in the wild anymore."

I sighed, though I too was grinning. "That was just what he said. I had been in the shallower parts, but my father had warned me against going too deep. Thinking back, I did not even think of all that might have happened."

No... At the time, I had been with Isha and that was enough to guarantee my safety. The boy knew the flora and fauna of the area better than an Oxford mathematics professor knew his multiplication tables.

"I take it from the fact you still have all your fingers that nothing terrible did happen," my husband (oh, it was so odd but so pleasant to refer to him as such) commented with one of his small smiles that meant more to me than his grins.

"No, and as promised, he led me to the flower. Oh, John, he was right to be affronted. The drawing in the book did it no justice at all. But when I touched the leaves, they were as tough as leather of the same thickness. Isha told me that was the way the best flowers were; they looked delicate enough to break, but yet they were as strong as they had to be in the jungle." I felt a blush rising to my face at the memory of the two of us, eleven and 

thinking nothing of twelve, crouching in the dirt around the cluster of yellow flowers. "He told me that was the way I was."

It had been childhood memories up until this point, but now I was revealing the very first traces of adulthood in my life; the green pushing up through the brown soil. Whether or not I had bloomed into a rare flower or not I could not say, but although I had not become a woman for several more years yet, womanhood glimmered faintly in the child I once was.

"Well, I did not know what to say." I had no more confidence at that moment than I had all those years ago. To be telling the man I loved now about the boy who had caught my first dim sparks of the emotion was more than a bit embarrassing. "I couldn't think of a thing to say for all the poems my tutor had made me memorize. So . . . so I didn't say a thing. I just..." Lost entirely, I gave a meek shrug.

"You kissed him." There was one of those small smiles again, playing on his solid features. He seemed a bit bashful, hearing about this young man, but he was more composed than I. John had such a strong constitution in the oddest of situations, another trait, no doubt, acquired at Sherlock Holmes's side. The detective himself did not seem to hold a great deal of affection for me, but I owed him much.

"Yes. I suppose I did." Certainly not the most intelligent thing to say, not when I had so many words that could describe the delicate scent of the wild tulips and the sweetness of the surrounding foliage, the heavy sun touching us only briefly through the thick green leaves, the sounds of the foreign forest that were as evocative as any poetry yet as volatile as a stream, the furious but delightful pounding of my heart as my lips touched his, and the blush that was hotter than any sunburn ever was that remained on our cheeks after we had parted.

"What happened then?"

I refrained from physically shaking my head to dislodge myself from the engulfing memory. "We never really talked of it again, to be honest. We remained good friends until I left for boarding school in England when I was thirteen and he was hired the next year as a guide to a group of botanists." I wondered how many other people had been led by him to those odd flowers within flowers. I wondered how many had been beautiful women that he had kissed. "Letters were useless since he could not read or write. And so we drifted apart, each to very different lives."

I held no regrets, of course. Marriage between a Caucasian and an Indian . . . What would my British relatives have said about that? No, there was no question of things going differently, not when I sat in an armchair across from a man who loved me so dearly.

At the same time, however, no matter how beautiful my English home with my handsome doctor would be, in my heart there would always be a patch of Himalayan tulips blooming under the persuasion of the Indian sun.


	3. Margaret and Rebecca

CHAPTER 3: WATSON'S POV

Mary had grown pensive, her eyes soft, with a faint smile on her lips. For a moment I could cheerfully have pummeled this Isha, had he only but been in the room. Then I recovered myself. It was beyond ridiculous to be jealous of a boy of eleven. India was years in her past and theirs had been an innocent and affectionate relationship. I certainly would not begrudge my wife (it was becoming easier to think of her as such, but it still gave me pause) her girlhood love.

"You were quite young," was all I could think to say. "Only eleven."

Her brows swooped upward like birds' wings. "For my first kiss, you mean?" She shrugged, her smile growing. "Perhaps. How old were you?"

I hesitated. This was a trifle more difficult to speak of than I originally anticipated. "That depends on what you would consider a first kiss. I would define a first kiss as both parties participating in the activity. The first time _I_ kissed a girl, I was ten and she did not reciprocate."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but only ten?" Mary laughed. I was glad to see she seemed much more at ease, even it was at my expense. "John, you are a fine one to talk of starting young!"

I felt a self-conscious smile begin. "Oh, I know. It gets far worse. The first time a girl kissed _me_, I was twelve and that time _I_ did not reciprocate."

Her eyebrows went higher and the corners of her mouth twitched as though she were trying very hard not to laugh again. "I see," Mary said, her voice tight and prim, contradicted by her dancing eyes. At least she was no longer pensive.

"Therefore," I continued, striving to retrieve a modicum of dignity, "I don't know that either situation could be properly termed a 'first kiss.'"

"Well," she said, straightening in her chair with carefully folded hands and crossed ankles, "I think you had better tell me both stories, and I will help you determine their proper categories." Mary suppressed it well but she had taken on an undeniable air of curiosity. It was slightly unnerving but if she could speak of her past loves with such aplomb then I could surely do no less. I shrugged out of my own jacket and turned to her.

"When I was ten, my father was contracted to map out the coastline and outcroppings for a small village in Wales. My brother and I attended the local public school there, and that year it had become the fad to take and give dares, the more foolish the better. I cannot help but think my brother and I had to take far more than our fair quota of dares, partially because we were the new boys and had to prove ourselves but also because we were brothers."

Mary's brow creased in confusion. "I don't understand why that would make a difference."

For a moment I was unable to answer. My brother had passed away within the year – Holmes himself had been unaware of his existence until just before the Agra treasure case – and that we had not been reconciled before his death made my memories of him all the more painful.

A shadow of this must have passed over my face for Mary suddenly grasped my hand. She knew of him, our falling out, and his manner of death; doubtlessly she knew why I hesitated now. "You needn't speak of it if the memories are still too fresh," she reassured me. "I don't mind."

"It's all right," I answered automatically. It was easier if I remembered him at thirteen, and if I concentrated on the story. "The thing you must understand, Mary, is that siblings will antagonize one another without provocation. This goes doubly so for brothers, especially when they are of close ages. Rivalries can easily develop and that is what happened between Harry and myself. If he took a dare successfully, then I had to succeed at it too. If I took one he had to prove it was no great feat by doing it himself. The local children caught onto this quickly." The dares that we two took that year could have provided hours worth of tales but I did offer this piece of information.

"Now, at this school was girl by the name of Margaret Crowther. Some girls are born coquettes and Margaret was one of them." Besides her airs and graces, she had been remarkably if conventionally pretty with flaxen gold curls and bright blue eyes. "By twelve she had captured the hearts of half the boys at the school and I was among them, I regret to say. Harry, being a year older than she, thought himself above such things. He was not, however, above tormenting me about her."

"Are all brothers like that?" Mary asked softly, unwilling to break into the story but too inquisitive to stay quiet. Having had no siblings of her own, I could understand her curiosity.

I thought of Holmes, and his interactions with his brother Mycroft, and couldn't keep from grinning wryly. "Some more than others, and they don't always grow out of it either. It finally came to a head one day after school when Harry dared me to kiss Margaret."

Mary gasped. "He did not!"

"Oh, he did," I assured her grimly. "In front of everyone and in a voice loud enough to carry across the playground. Anyone who didn't hear the original dare caught wind of it from a friend and soon nearly the entire school had gathered around to watch.

"I was absolutely furious with him for putting me into such a situation yet I knew what would happen if I refused. The consequences would be merciless taunting from my schoolmates, and worse yet from Harry himself. And if I didn't kiss her, Margaret might think I refused to take the dare because I didn't wish to kiss her. This, of course, I simply could not have," I added with such dry humor that Mary giggled, as I meant her to.

"In the end, pride and stubbornness would not allow me back down. I had to see the challenge through to the bitter end. I looked at Margaret, sick with nerves, and though she had gone a deep pink she nodded. I had planned to kiss her cheek but lost my nerve at the last moment. I whispered to her as quietly as I could that I would kiss her hand if she preferred and she offered it to me like a queen expecting tribute. I took her hand, bowed over it like a courtier, and kissed it."

"What happened then?" Mary asked. She was leaning forward with eagerness, thoroughly enraptured by the tale.

"Harry hadn't specified _where _I was to kiss her so the dare was met. I was the envy of nearly every boy my age for a week," I laughed, remembering the black looks the other boys had directed at me during 

the time. "To his credit, Harry took it with fairly good grace, especially since I bragged about it incessantly. Unfortunately for me, my father overheard and I got quite the talking-to about men and women in general, and women in particular."

Mary laughed again at that. I leaned back in my chair, looked to the ceiling, and almost unconsciously assumed my father's cadence and accent. " 'Lad, you are far too young to be starting in with the girls. There's time enough for trouble that will bring. Leave them alone for a few years yet and concentrate on your studies,' " I quoted.

"Sound advice," commented Mary, mirth contained at last. "Is that why you did not return the kiss you received when you were twelve?"

"Not entirely," I confessed. "Harry was at boarding school in England then, while my father and I were in Australia. I had offered to walk Rebecca Pennegor home from school one day. We were nothing more than friends, or so I thought at the time. When we reached her house she stood on the first step so that we were at eye level with one another. I began to give her back her books and we were both holding them when she leaned forward and kissed me briefly, full on the mouth. I was too surprised to do anything but stand there and gape at her like a landed cod. Then she snatched her books back and pounded up the stairs, and I went home feeling like the biggest fool to walk the earth."

"Did you speak to her after that?" Mary asked, sympathy all but radiating from her. Once again, I could not help but thank whatever providence had brought this wonderful woman to me. She was an ideal helpmate in every way, knowing when it was safe to laugh and when compassion was called for.

"Oh, we stammered a few words at each other afterwards but we never recaptured that easy friendship we had had. Then I returned to England for schooling." In hindsight, I regretted not only the loss of her friendship but the selfish resentment I had harbored against her. At twelve, all I could perceive was that Rebecca had ruined our simple relationship, but I had been too blind or ignorant to see how I must have hurt and mortified her by my response . . . or lack thereof.

I sighed and sought to retrieve a little of the levity I had begun with. "Well, Mary, those are the stories of my first kisses, such as they are. What is your verdict?"

With all the graveness of a judge, she responded, "My verdict is that you have had rather terrible luck with women, at least to begin with."

I stared at her in astonishment and slowly her mask of absolute seriousness cracked. Not quite against my will, I felt myself giving in and smiling also. "Well, perhaps you are right," I replied and half-knelt on the floor by her chair. "But I can assure you my luck has changed since then, and that I have learned a few things." So saying, I gently drew her closer and kissed her as tenderly as I was able.

"You'll note," she murmured, a few moments later, "that I reciprocated." Her cheeks had flushed slightly and her eyes were glowing softly.

"You'll note that I reciprocated your reciprocations," I answered puckishly. "I told you I had learned something since then." My own face felt warm and my breath had sped slightly. "May I?" With slowness born of caution, I reached for her collar button.

Mary nodded and rose to her feet. Her breath also was coming quicker than normal. Her trust in me was plainly written on her face as I oh-so-gently undid the buttons of her blouse. Then, as I kissed her again, I brushed the clothing free from her shoulders. There was a gentle rustling as the blouse slipped to the floor. Her arms were bare to the shoulders and warm beneath my hands while the white cotton of her corset cover and chemise were cool. She did not protest as I undid the fastenings of the corset cover and allowed it join her blouse on the floor.

"Turnabout is fair play," she whispered and she reached for my own collar button while I hastily undid and removed my waistcoat. I stood patiently while her nimbly fingers made quick work of the buttons. Once I was freed of my shirt and wool undershirt, she tentatively touched the scar on my shoulder. Her eyes dimmed with concern as she brushed it with feather-light gentleness.

"It doesn't pain me," I said in answer to her unspoken question. "Only when the weather changes or I overstrain it."

"I'm glad," whispered Mary and initiated another kiss. This time, she broke it off and wandered rather despondently towards the bed. She sat on the edge and looked at me pleadingly, but fearful.

Immediately I sat next to her. "Mary, you need not worry. I will not pressure you into anything. This marriage will not be built upon submission and domination, I swear it."

She glanced sideways at me. "I am very glad of it but it is not that. I'm not . . . that is to say . . ." She sighed and turned to face me full on. "If I were wearing a ball gown I would be just as exposed as I am now and yet I feel so . . . uncomfortable with myself. And I am also unaccustomed to being in the presence of half-clothed men," she added with a slight, self-conscious laugh.

"If it is any consolation, I am unaccustomed to being in the presence of half-clothed ladies," I replied, striving again for levity. "Especially outside of medical situations."

As I had hoped, Mary smiled at that, but only briefly. "What shall we do?"

Again, she waited to follow my lead. I had been utterly serious when I said I would not pressure her into anything. I was willing to wait for as long as necessary for her, for _us,_ to become comfortable with ourselves and with each other, but how should we go about doing that?

"You know, Mary," I said slowly, "I told you of two girls from my past and you told me of only one boy from yours. That seems a trifle unfair to me. Perhaps you would be good enough to even the score, as it were?"


	4. Aristotle Worthe

CHAPTER 4: MARY'S POV

Every instinct in my body demanded that I shy away when John reached for my collar button. If I was to believe the teachers at my old school, my gender was predisposed to loathing the act that should have already been performed. Loathing was far from the right word, however, for I knew John could not wish to do something to me that I would hate.

A horrible case of the nerves was my true problem. This was entirely unexplored territory, as intimidating as any Indian jungle (though not nearly as deadly, I'd imagine). No matter how much strength it took to keep the tremble from my hands and voice, I took great comfort in knowing I had an apt and gentle guide.

Such an odd sight should anyone have seen it; two married adults half undressed and on the edge of a bed and yet sitting as primly and chastely as if we were at afternoon tea.

When John prompted me for a second boy, a face entirely unlike John's leapt to my mind more quickly than I would have liked it to. Pale skin, white blond hair, the bluest eyes I'd ever seen and the delicate build of a minstrel puppet, opposite to my husband's (what a wonderful word!) stocky and strong frame.

"Aristotle Worthe," I stated, unable to contain a small smile. "As you'd imagine, at a girl's school they kept us as separate from the male sex as was humanly possible, but once a week they would allow us very supervised visits with the boy's school down the street and twice a semester there was a dance in which we could practice our graces and whatnot."

And whatnot . . . Oh, if only the etiquette instructors could hear that denouncement of what we were told were the most important skills a woman could possess outside birthing healthy sons. Curtsies more measured and angled than most bridges, the dynamics of a proper letter, usage of one's fan as a communication device. One would think courting was an invention exclusive to Londoners who could afford decent dresses. I obeyed these customs, but I did not believe half of them.

"Should I be jealous of this Master Worthe?" John questioned, only half serious but still a bit concerned as he reached out to brush a strand of my hair, jarred loose when I had undressed, away from my slightly flushed face.

"Oh, John… Oh, _no_." He laughed at my firmness, and I shook my head (which only sent more rogue strands of my hair flying about). "That does not come until the end of this, but please keep in mind there is a reason I am sitting across from you and not him."

This seemed to content my retired solider, and he visibly relaxed. He had not shown outward jealousy at my first kiss, but how could he truly hold children accountable? It was no wonder an older, more deliberate romance would rouse more emotions.

It certainly did for me. They were hardly as fond as the memory of Isha.

"I was fourteen," I began, staring at my hands. I was forced to fold them again; fidgeting was in my nature but I have been told time and time again that it was most unbecoming. "As I said, I was in boarding school. I did not take as much pleasure in the measured exposure to masculinity as most of the girls did. I was never entirely silly over them, and they never seemed to pay much attention to me."

"Why on earth not?" John questioned, cupping my chin in a way that set off a thousand nerves that ran shivers down my back, a cold chill combined with the warmness of his touch. "How could they pass up such a beautiful . . ." His face cracked into a mischievous smile. ". . . Himalayan tulip?"

I pushed his hand away, but in a playful manner that was devoid of any hostility. "If you wish to describe me as a flower, then I suppose I was a late bloomer. I still had not . . . _developed_ all that fully, even at fourteen, and at that age the only thing boys seek are what they believe to be 'true women'. I did not mind entirely, I was more interested in books that boys." Here my blush reappeared and deepened to a new shade. "Save for one, however. There was one I would have burned all my books for."

"Master Worthe, I take it."

My nod was bashful and admitting, a guilty plea. "He was the most popular boy at both schools; a star on the cricket team and a wonderful poet. Beautiful, too. More beautiful than handsome. He had pale, pale hair that could probably be stained by pollen and cornflower blue eyes . . ."

John's brow rose substantially. "I am becoming increasingly jealous, I must admit. No one has ever described my eyes as a flower."

Without an ounce of my instinctual hesitance I gave his brow a quick kiss, running my hair through his neat hair. "Because not many flowers are brown, my John. Your eyes are the hue of the noble oak, if that soothes you, and oaks outlive cornflowers by centuries."

His smile was more than reward for my terribly awful attempt at poetry. "Romantic drivel if I ever heard it, but I enjoy it despite myself. Continue; I will keep the green-eyed beast at bay a while longer."

I pecked again at his forehead. "Please do. And you have no cause to be jealous. He was not like you at all." Tentatively, waiting for his consent before touching his bare skin, I began to knead his broad shoulders, being careful of the scarred area no matter how benign he claimed it was. "He was pretty to look at, but all in all, now that I'm grown I prefer a man less feminine than I."

His chortle showed that he had eased, either at my words or my touch, and I was glad for it.

"As I said, Aristotle was terribly popular. His uncle was a duke and his money was as old as they come. His parents claimed to be very bohemian, hence his creative name, but I believe Mr. Holmes would scoff terribly at their idea of bohemian, for it contained an unwholesome amount of gold and silk."

I had never seen the Worthe mansion, but I imagined it was nothing like the chaotic flat John had shared with Mr. Sherlock Holmes. There most certainly was never any chemicals lying about or teeth in the butter dishes (although I still believed John was merely teasing me about the later).

"I was merely the bookworm who had grown up in India, so you can imagine my shock when the most sought after boy of St. Andrew's lowered my copy of _Northanger Abbey_ one visiting day and asked if I thought hiding my beautiful eyes was as much of a crime as he did. Well . . ." I could feel my cheeks burning again. "I couldn't help myself, John. I was 

pure butter. We began talking, I can't even remember what about, and just as the boys' teachers were rounding them up, he held my novel up in front of us and gave me a peck on the lips."

I still remember that sickening feeling that I was going to jolt awake from a dream to damp hair and sheets, perhaps with my roommate making kissing noises having overheard some nocturnal mumbling. But no, there had been no awakening. It had been an actual moment. I almost wished it had been a dream. Almost.

"He asked me . . . asked me if I would be his partner at the ball that was to be next week. I had been planning to go, of course, but I usually brought a book and sat to the side all night. I did not mind it, but there were moments of acetic jealousy when I wished to be one of the graceful girls dancing with a beautiful boy. And this was my chance."

The preparations for that night were wedged far firmer in my mind than the kiss. My roommate was far from being my friend but she was also not one to be jealous; while all the other girls were furious that I of all people had captured the elusive Aristotle, she had conjured up a fine dress for me to spite the lot of them (I never did ask where she had borrowed it from), and she fit it for me so that it slipped on like a glove. I begged my aunt to loan me my mother's good sapphires for the night. I paid rapt attention to the etiquette lessons that week.

I could still see the school's ballroom, every lamp lit up, the boys all in their best formal dress, servants in pressed uniforms. I felt like an awkward caterpillar bloomed into a butterfly.

"To me, the evening was a dream," I sighed, tilting my head away so that John could not see my expression, my hands falling away from his shoulders. Despite the fact that it was so long ago, I had a feeling the degree of my "love" for Aristotle Worthe would show itself still. "We danced and I didn't step on his feet once. He stepped on mine a few times, but I barely noticed. And when he suggested we step outside onto the balcony, well..."

The balcony was really more of a ground patio, being on the first floor, but it had been a private world to girls observing older couples evading the chaperones out there for a few brief moments. For a young girl who had read every romance novel in the school library (though there had not been many), it was almost too much to fathom.

"I'm not quite sure what he did to get me that close. I suppose he sort of looped his arms around my waist and pulled me in. By that time I was so limp and cotton-brained he could have positioned me like a tailor's dummy. I thought I knew what was coming, so I closed my eyes and I kissed him in the most passionate way I knew how."

The most passionate way I knew how was with one foot raised slightly and my hands on the small of his back. In my own defense, I was fourteen. I still remember the mint smell of his aftershave (no doubt worn merely for show, he could not have been shaving at that point and I wondered now if he ever did) and the softer scent of the perfume I had begged off another girl.

"And then . . . ?" I looked over to find John staring at me quite intently. I could see in his eyes that talk of this doll of a boy was making him uneasy. What was a scarred writer-doctor to a duke's nephew? In my mind everything, but apparently he could not read my thoughts.

"I am not sure how long it lasted but it ended when he pushed me away." My gaze fell now. I was fidgeting, but proper manners be damned. I was sitting here in my corset and skirts, not at a garden party. "He... He was laughing, John. And that's when I heard giggling from the bushes."

I heard their laughter now, some higher than others as some of the boys had not yet begun their transformation into manhood. Their laughter joined Master Worthe's, merry and triumphant. It was not until John brushed away a tear from my cheek that I realized several tears had escaped.

"He spoke. He told me it had all been a bet he had to win, to ask out the plain, flat Mary Morstan. He had been the only one to take it. He had played me for a fool, made me look like an idiot in front of this beautiful creature and all his friends, and had broken my young heart entirely. I didn't know what to do..."

"Mary..." John began, making a move to embrace me.

"... so I lifted the skirts of my dress ever so slightly and planted my knee quite firmly between his legs."

His arms quickly withdrew and a grimace crossed his face. The very mention of the act seemed to affect all men the same. "_Mary_!"

I crossed my arms, tossing my hair in mock contrariety. "Well, you can't tell me he didn't deserve it!"

"Mary, what he did was horrid and cruel, but having taken more than one blow to that . . . specific area, I am not quite sure anyone deserves that."

I risked a rather roguish smile. "Say what you will, it felt excellent. For me, that is. Not an ordinary end to a common crush, but I found it quite satisfactory. Truth be told, I was surprised he had anything there at all. That is how it ends: me exiting the balcony with my head held high and Master Aristotle Worthe, high-class bohemian beauty, writhing on the clay tiles."

John finally wrapped his arms around me, resting his square chin on my bare shoulder. "Mary, my dear?"

I placed a hand on top of his head. "Yes, John?"

He kissed my lips almost tentatively. "Never allow me to anger you."


	5. Interlude

CHAPTER 5: WATSON'S POV

Mary giggled at my words, which made it somewhat difficult to kiss her. "Have no fear," she said at last. "You, unlike Master Worthe, are a gentleman. I cannot think of a single situation where I would be willing to inflict the same damage on you as I did to him."

"I am relieved to hear it." While I felt the cad (mostly) deserved it, no man can see or hear such things without feeling an immediate, visceral pang of sympathy. I gave up the notion of further kisses – useless if Mary were going to continue to laugh – and slipped behind her to gently rub her shoulders and upper back. She was still somewhat tense but relaxed under my touch. The massage was comforting for her but it also granted me some privacy to consider what I had heard.

A cad he may have been, but Mary still seemed to harbor some feelings towards him despite it all. I had known men like Aristotle Worthe, bounders unworthy of the affections of a good woman like Mary. Yet too often they get away with murder, sometimes literally, because of their stations in life, or their well-favored looks, or their oily charms. As much as it pained her even to this day, it was just as well Mary had learned early on to be wary of such men. Otherwise, as she so rightly pointed out, she might be sitting next to him today, trapped by marriage to a man unworthy to lace her boots.

As if to dispel my dark thoughts, Mary sighed with utter contentment and leaned back against me, somewhat stiffly. Confounded corsets! Fashionable they may be but they are at best utter nuisances when it comes to practicality. I would have liked to attend to the thoracic muscles of the middle back but that was impossible when hidden by tight canvas and whalebone.

"Mary, would you think it terribly forward of me if I asked you to remove that blasted corset? It hardly looks comfortable." I concentrated on circling my thumbs around tops of her shoulder blades to emphasize my point.

"Well, you are right. It is not particularly comfortable," she smiled at me over her shoulder, "but such is fashion."

"I am afraid we doctors are rather backwards when it comes to such fashions," I said dryly. "We value trifling things like breathing and general health over the ability to encircle one's waist with one's hands."

"That _is_ backwards of you," Mary teased. More tendrils of hair had escaped the neat chignon she had worn during the day and it gave her a girlish, playful appearance. "I would be happy to oblige you but . . ." Her voice dropped, as did her gaze. "I-I should have to remove my skirts to do so."

"I don't mind," I said thoughtlessly, then realized how that might sound to her, still shy and nervous. Hastily I floundered about for another reason. "I trust you were not planning to sleep in your traveling clothes anyway?"

"Well . . . no," Mary admitted, turning a charming shade of pink. She slipped off the edge of the bed and reached behind her to undo the buttons of the waistband. However, she turned her back to me as she undid the fastenings. I found myself biting my cheek to keep from smiling at this show of modesty. Or course, she knew as well as I that not looking at me would not keep me from seeing her and yet I understood how much easier it was for her to not meet my eye.

As the grey outer skirt billowed to the floor, revealing the froth of lacy petticoats, Mary looked over her shoulder at me. "Are _you_ planning on sleeping in your traveling clothes?"

I smiled my acquiescence and rose also. "Fair is fair," I agreed. It was unjust to ask my wife to do that which I myself would hesitate to do. Moreover, I had begun to realize how discomforting it must for her to disrobe while I watched. She turned her attention to removing her petticoats and I politely averted my eyes, attention on further divesting myself.

Women's clothing being what it is, my trousers were off and folded, and the bedclothes thrown back, before Mary was able to begin the arduous task of unlacing that blasted corset. Trying not to startle her, I undid the knots myself and loosened the laces as I would an overly tightened boot. She sighed again, more deeply, as I pulled the contraption off her. She had not, I was pleased to note, been laced in overly tightly, only an inch or two.

Perhaps the corset was constricting in more ways than one, for once it was removed, Mary smiled at me playfully and undid the remaining pins holding her hair up. Waves of hair cascaded down her back as she shook her head slightly.

"It's like a waterfall of gold," I murmured and could not restrain my fingers from running through it.

"I fear you are the one now spouting romantic drivel but I'm glad you approve of my hair," Mary teased. "Otherwise I might have been forced to cut it off completely." To my surprise, she took advantage of our close proximities and initiated a kiss, all the more delightful for its innocent exuberance. Praying I was not rushing things, I broke it off and concentrated on kissing the length of her neck.

She gasped, in surprise or enjoyment I was not sure. "John . . ." she whispered, and arched her head up and slightly to the side. No, I had not erred in my timing.

When at last I reached her collarbone I stopped and looked her full in the face to gauge her reaction. There was no fear or shock in her face. Rather, there was what I could only construe as joy and . . . desire? Then her brows rose archly and her smile grew more knowing.

"And just where did a gentleman learn that particular maneuver?" Mary demanded, hands on her hips. I observed she was clad in only her shift now and promptly tried to ignore this observation in favor of offering her a coherent answer.

"Offhand, I should say somewhere in one of the many nations or three continents in which I have gained experience with women," I retorted. Flippancy was a comfortable sanctuary. I had no desire to lie to her -- a husband and wife should not keep secrets from one another – but the truth might cause her a pang or two of jealousy.

Mary would not be put off. "But you are no callous Lothario," she returned, laying her hand on my arm. "Therefore I must assume there was a girl, or perhaps a woman, in your past that you became . . . close to."

"You really wish to hear about her? On our wedding night?"

"I have told you about my past romances. Not to belittle your relationships with Margaret and Rebecca, but as you yourself said, a true first kiss is one in which both parties participate equally. You have yet to describe such a situation." She bit her lip suddenly and I noticed her hands had grown fidgety. Without warning she moved past me and sat on the bed yet again.

"It was my idea to broach this subject in the first place," Mary said seriously. "And yes, I really wish to hear about her, even on our wedding night. I admit I'm quite curious about this girl who meant so much to you. She played a part in making you the man you are today, after all."

Startled and speechless, I sat beside her. We were turned towards each other, knees barely touching. Mary's face was gentle, sincere, not judging. And what had happened between Jane and me was honorable; there was no shame in it or in telling her.

"Her name was Jane Lesley," I began.


	6. Jane Lesley

CHAPTER SIX: WATSON'S POV

"We were in Cornwall," I continued, doing my best to keep my gaze away from Mary's less than clothed figure (or at least above her neck).

She was beautiful, this love of mine, and yet just to look upon her in this state brought a blush rising to my cheeks. Perhaps it was because my mind's eye held her in such an elevated position that I was so embarrassed. It was comparable to doing something wicked in a church; desecrating a pure, graven image. I had to remember, however, that she was first and foremost a person, and the fact that she had accepted my proposal of marriage and had consented to removing her skirts and corsets meant she was at least moderately comfortable with the situation.

It was more than I could say for myself.

"We were in Cornwall." I found the need to start again, having lost my train of thought entirely in my admiration of the woman before me. "My father and I. I was seventeen and receiving tutorage under a local doctor. My father wanted me to be sure the medical field was right for me before investing time and money in it. Harry had gone to London for university; he had plans to be an accountant. He was quite sharp with numbers." That goal had never been reached; my brother had been expelled for public drunkenness, but I did not wish to dwell on that. "My father was on an allowance from a publishing company writing of his travels."

He had finished the memoirs eventually, but they had never been published. I myself would have been crushed. My father, taking a pragmatic stance, viewed it as two years off with pay.

"Jane was the daughter of Geoffrey Lesley. He was a famous composer under a pseudonym who conducted in the finest London theatres on many occasions. The rest of the time he lived in quiet Cornwall. His wife was always ill; she could not tolerate the city. That was how Jane and I met, through her mother's ill state. I was alongside the doctor in examining her, and she came into the room to see if we required anything, and . . ."

_And. _ So small and yet so much emotion lingered in that single word. Jane had not been truly pretty, and yet from that first time I laid eyes on her I saw her as a masterpiece too grand for even da Vinci or Michelangelo to paint. Hair the colour of iron-rich soil was a stream of molten bronze, common blue eyes were eternal pools, and lightly freckled skin had been speckled by the hand of a great Being, like nutmeg on cream.

"We were young, and we thought every moment contained the future." I did not know what else to say, and so I moved beyond that moment quickly. I was almost afraid of incriminating myself to my wife, worried of committing adultery in spirit by admitting Mary had not been the first to capture my heart in a dainty hand.

My hesitance to describe the moment further must have been obvious, for Mary leaned into me, mimicking the kisses I had rained upon her, letting her lips touch my own nape almost too gently to feel but more than enough to make a shiver run up the length of my spine.

"Tell what you wish you, but do not fear my anger," she murmured, her next kiss landing upon my bullet-trailed shoulder. "The past is the past, and I can take comfort in the fact that I have you all to 

myself tonight."

I could not help but smile, my hands straying to her golden hair once more. "Do remember, then, that you insisted to hear this. I do not wish to be exposed to the same fate as Master Worthe."

"Oh, no, John. I have only just captured you. There is plenty time yet to make you regret me."

"I never will, my love. Never." I rested my forehead against hers, cherishing the moment of closeness briefly before drawing breath and continuing. "Jane and I became quite close over the following months. I spent so many days waiting in her entry hall for her music lessons from her father and her tutors to be over it is a wonder I never rooted into the settee entirely."

In my mind I was back there again in an instant, my writer's mind supplying every detail, whether remembered or invented. The antique furniture, the huge German grandfather clock swinging with its resounding tocks to my left, a vase claimed to be Ming (I did not know Ming from mud-brick then, though today I might have a better idea as to the veracity of the claim) to my right, filled with fresh flowers in the summer and silk replicas in the winter.

The ticking might have driven me mad had I not had an ideal place to hear the grand piano, the flute, or the German violin in the music room directly behind me.

I would not admit that the girl had a single fault at the time, but thinking back I could remember the tiny things that marred her prodigal talent for her three best instruments. She was hesitant, finding no true confidence even if a piece was flawless, as if she were ashamed that her performance was not better even in the midst of practice. Her father was always urging her to be angry if a composition called for it, to be forceful, to be passionate, but especially before her father Jane could find no force. She resembled her mother that way.

"The reason Jane's mother was always ill was that the entire village and most of London knew that her husband had a great number of mistresses," I sighed, creating a bit of distance now to ease my hunched muscles. "Rumour also had it that he was a frequent visitor to the most upper-class brothels the great city had to offer. It was too much for her and she took to bed when she first found out, complaining of heart palpations that never occurred when anyone else was around and dizzy spells that left no traces. These always distressed Jane a great deal; she did not acknowledge their true origins."

Jane had been a remarkably intelligent girl, and yet she had been the sole person not to see her mother's iron constitution for what it was. I suppose it was not her fault; the act had started when she was very young, and she had grown up in the perpetual presence of a sickly mother. How many times had she cut our outings short to go home and tend to her? And yet her mother barely acknowledged her, preferring diluted morphine to her own child. Perhaps it was the fact that Jane looked a great deal like her straying father.

"Poor woman," Mary murmured, shaking her head at Mrs. Lesley's situation.

"Perhaps not so much. These were only stories, mind, but many said that she was a terror before he began his affairs, that he was driven to it. I do not know that, but I do know that in sickness or in health, Mrs. Lesley was an unbearable woman and that Jane was their only child."

While I could not condone his philandering, neither could I blame Mr. Lesley for his frequent absences from home. Mrs. Lesley had thrown a bottle at me once, and Mr. Lesley always wore his hair in the same part. The sole time I saw it otherwise, I discovered that this was to hide a jagged scar on his forehead. I did not question him or Jane about it; I could not find the nerve to.

"When we were away from that house, Jane was so much more outgoing, so much friendlier. She was released from the duties of being her mother's nurse and her father's pupil for the first time in her life, and she enjoyed it. I taught her to ride her family's horses, and she taught me how to swim -- "

My wife arched a golden brow at this, much more amused than irate.

"Our clothes remained on," I explained hurriedly. "Or at least, mostly on. That is to say, I kept my trousers and she her corset and last skirt . . . I am making sound worse than it was."

Not the most innocent thing in the world, but looking back it had felt far more innocent than it sounded coming from my mouth. Somewhere between Mary's first kiss in the jungles of India and this situation now, where we knew what we were obligated to do but neither of us quite had the gusto to initiate the act.

Mary's eyes were on her twisting hands now, not the most optimistic sign. Her fidgeting, unrepressed, meant certain discomfort. "Were the two of you . . . intimate?"

"No." My response was quick, and sharper than I meant it to be. This startled myself more than my wife. "No," I continued, softer this time. "We kissed, of course, much differently from those one-way kisses, but with Jane . . . She was not that kind of young woman, and I was not that kind of young man."

"And I am?" she demanded, placing her hands on her hips. Her mischievous smile betrayed that fact that she was not truly affronted, however.

I planted a kiss on the crook of her neck, chuckling. "We are married; starting tonight we are permitted to do everything short of murder with the blessing of the staunchest of society."

Her smile broadened as her twisting hands reached out to twist into mine. "If she was so wonderful, this Jane, why is she not sharing your bed? Besides luck on my part, I mean."

The memory was not one I enjoyed revisiting at any time, let alone on the night of my wedding, the most joyous day of my life. I had a pretty woman beside me, and here I was sitting and talking to her about an adolescent sweetheart. Holmes would think me quite mad. But then, Holmes thought me mad for marrying in the first place.

"We had our silly little fights. Every couple does." Mary and I had had our share of them, the most vicious of them revolving around a certain seven-per-cent solution. "At that age, people are so contrary that they do not know what they want, so that made it doubly so. One day we were bickering in that trivial little way about her music lessons. Her father was increasing them by half an hour. I wanted her to protest it, she did not wish to go against her father's wishes . . ." I sighed, eyes falling to the bedcovers. "I asked her which was more important, her music or me."

That had been a stupid question. I had already known the answer to it, but it was not one I wanted to 

hear. I expected her to lie, to say she preferred me, to not let the obvious see the light of day. But she had not granted me that decency.

"She said that her music was dearer to her heart and always would be."

Mary gave a grimace of sympathy, brushing her hand along my brow. "Oh, John."  
  
"I expected it, Mary. I knew what the answer would be before I had even asked the question. At the time, however, our tempers were flared, and I . . . I said things I should not have."

It was a heinous understatement. I asked her why she valued her music so highly. Did it lift her spirit? Permit her to give voice to inner passions? Or was it because it pleased her father and made her more like him? Did she want to become a famous musician so that she could go to London and have lovers on the payroll whenever she desired them?

"Just an hour later, I could not recall why I had said those things," I murmured, coming to rest my head on Mary's silky shoulder. "They had simply . . . slipped out. Weeks upon weeks of tip-toeing around the subject, of nodding when she parroted back her mother's excuses, it all just came out . . . "

"Did she ever forgive you?" my wife murmured, caressing my head in a manner that fell somewhere between romantic and platonic.

"We never talked again. Perhaps she might have forgiven me if we had, but I was too ashamed to approach her and she was too stubborn to approach me. That was another one of her father's traits. I went to medical school; she went to Italy. She was still living there the last I saw her name; she plays first chair flute in a very renowned orchestra. She married, but was widowed within five years."

I had looked up that information reluctantly. It had almost felt like prying, even though with Jane's moderate fame such knowledge was publicly known. I had wondered more than once if she had ever picked up a copy of _The Strand_ to read of my adventures. I wondered if she knew I had finally married.

"Do you regret it?" whispered my new wife, jarring me from my musings. "That you lost her so carelessly?"

Such a deep question to be answered in several seconds. My heart had ached for so long over the senseless loss of her. I had nothing but my pride and my temper to blame, and yet I did not have the courage to make things right. My feelings for Jane Lesley had been young but genuine, and I wished it had not ended that way.

And yet, would her love have been as great as the love between me and Mary? It was an impossible thing to measure, granted, and harder yet to predict.

"You are my wife," I finally murmured, kissing up her neck, taking delight in the smoothness of her skin. "And I am your husband, and that I can never regret."


	7. Wedding Night, con't

CHAPTER SEVEN: WATSON'S POV

"You are my wife," I finally murmured, kissing up her neck, taking delight in the smoothness of her skin. "And I am your husband, and that I can never regret."

For minutes – or perhaps hours, my sense of time was lost beyond recall – we traded all manner of kisses with abandonment, the shyness and restraint between us having all but evaporated. For a long while it was enough to simply be with one another, affectionate and loving.

For a while, anyway. Nature will have her way with us and matters escalated, as they will do. Every instinct of mine cried out for continuance. And yet I as much as I wanted her, I held back. Mary was more knowledgeable about the act of making love than many brides, more credit to her. She was relaxed and willing. Even so, the initial act was often uncomfortable at first, even painful. I loved her too much to hurt her. It was ridiculous, no doubt, to behave as if she was made of the spun glass, but there it is.

Mary noted my sudden hesitation and, as is the nature of women, divined the truth without my having spoken a word. My hand had come to rest on the curve of her waist and now she captured it with her own hand. Her eyes bore into mine, all seriousness and earnestness. "You said before that you would not force me to do anything I did not wish to. I know you will hold yourself to that."

"Of course I will." What else could I say? It was the truth. I began to pull away from her, now that I knew her wishes on the matter.

Her grip on my hand tightened and her eyes seemed to darken. "But I want to. I want _you_. And I rather think the feeling is mutual."

I blinked at her, at her intense tone especially. Before I could regain my voice, however, Mary continued, going pink with more than simple embarrassment. "I believe my _Ayah_, that this is the greatest earthly pleasure."

At last I found my words. "It may hurt a little, at first."

Mary sighed and closed her eyes briefly in what I can only describe as exasperation. "John, I would trust you with my life. You won't harm me, I know it. But now you must trust me. If anything is amiss I shall let you know." She punctuated the sentiment with a kiss that contradicted her gentle breeding.

"Now may I please cease this forward and unladylike behavior before you're convinced you have married a wanton?"

I laughed softly, convinced of her sincerity if not her loose morals. "Well, I may have married a wanton but at least I can try to make an honest woman of you." As if to belie my words, I let my hands slip from her waist to hips.

"Please do," she said as primly as was possible, given the circumstances.

* * *

The black sky of night was lightening to a dark indigo. It was either very early or very late, depending on one's perspective. A peaceful stillness hovered both within and without our rooms, even the nocturnal wildlife having fallen silent. My wife and I lay facing one another, pressed close as if to melt into each other, pulses resuming normalcy. The only disagreeable element in an otherwise perfect situation was my sudden realization that my height respective to hers all but guaranteed that whenever we pressed together this way, loose tendrils of her hair would find their way up my nose and into my mouth. Before a sneeze could brew, I turned my head so that my cheek rested against her head.

"John?" she murmured into my chest.

"Yes, Mary?"

"Is your shoulder all right?"

I snorted at this incongruous question and, despite my provisions, nearly inhaled some of her wayward blonde curls.

"Is the rest of you all right?" Mary queried with some real concern as I reflexively jerked back and sneezed.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," I assured her. "Shoulder included." This was not entirely accurate, as it was aching slightly; however, it was not enough to concern either of us over. "But really, Mary, the question is, are _you_ all right? I told you it might hurt a little and you did flinch that once . . . "

"I'm perfectly all right, more than all right," she replied and snuggled close once again. "I had a lovely evening, sir, thank you," she added pawkishly, as though I were escorting her home from the opera. I laughed softly, keeping my face well above her hair.

"I'm glad."

"There is one thing," my wife ventured, after a moment or two.

"Yes?" I admit to feeling a touch of apprehension.

"It sounds so foolish but . . . I'm not saying it wasn't worth the effort, but . . . well, I hadn't realized how much _work_ it would be. Nobody said anything about that."

It may have been callous of me but I laughed aloud. Part of it was relief; the other was acknowledging the truth of her observation. "I suppose I could warn you now although it would be trifle too late."

"It would, yes," agreed Mary dryly but with a smile.

"Well, that is the price to be paid if one is to do more than simply 'lie back and think of England,'" I replied and hugged her gently. "Fortunately we have nothing more strenuous to do tomorrow than board our train and as you just said, it is worth the effort."

Mary made a soft noise that I took to be acquiescence mangled by sleepiness. I myself was feeling the effects of the hour and settled onto a pillow. I was on the verge of drifting off to sleep when my wife's voice broke through my lethargy.

"Incidentally, John, if you and Jane were never intimate like this, where on earth did you learn that particular trick with your hand?"

It took me a moment to recall the maneuver she spoke of and the source of said maneuver. "Indian prostitute in Bombay," I mumbled.

There was another long silence, during which I very nearly fell asleep, when once again Mary's voice prevented me from doing so. "John!"

"Hmm?"

"An Indian prostitute?"

"What?" I blinked at her, not understanding her indignant tone, then realized she was not privy to the details. "Oh, not like that, Mary! I had never put that move into practice until tonight, I assure you. My knowledge was relayed by only verbal means."

"You . . . paid a prostitute in India to lecture you on ways to give a woman pleasure?"

"Yes. Also in Edinburgh and in London, both times while attending University," I added, my eyes falling shut again.

"John!"

I dragged my eyes open one last time. "Mary, I am not entirely proud of it but I was a young man at the time. A student first, and then a soldier. It was easier to go along with the plans of my more 'sporting' peers than endure their taunts. Never once did I engage in physical activities. I traded coins for information relayed only verbally. In this way I gained quite a bit of practical knowledge and escaped untold amounts of harassment. Not an ideal situation, perhaps, but one that was mutually satisfactory for all parties."

Mary buried her head into my unscarred shoulder and shook violently. It took me a moment to realize she was laughing helplessly. "I suppose one day you will demonstrate what you learned in Edinburgh and London?" she gasped out after a few minutes, nearly crying from hilarity.

"Perhaps tomorrow," I replied and, at last, fell asleep.

* * *

EPILOGUE

" 'An experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents,' Watson?" Holmes asked with one black eyebrow raised in a knowing manner. "I knew the fair sex was your department but I didn't realize you had made so extensive a study as all that."

I found myself blushing slightly, to my abject annoyance. I did not call on Holmes as often as I might and this was his preferred method of extracting revenge for my neglect. I do not think he ever did forgive me entirely for marrying, though he admitted he had little argument against my choice of wife. Fortunately for me I had an equally embarrassing weapon to wield against Holmes. "I didn't realize you had deigned to read my, as you call it, 'romantic drivel,' Holmes."

For half a second Sherlock Holmes looked as guilty as he is capable of. "I glanced over the first chapter or two," he dismissed it airily. I chose not to point out the all-but-hidden bookmark protruding from around Chapter Twelve. "I hope for your sake Mrs. Watson does not read even that much. She seems a most tolerant woman but she must have her limits."

"Given that she suggested the phrase, I very much doubt she will object to seeing it in print," I retorted, and took some vindictive little joy in watching Holmes's consternation grow. "But that was only pillow talk, you understand."

"Pillow talk? What do you mean by –"

I did not think it was possible, but Holmes turned a radiant shade of vermillion as comprehension dawned and he hastily changed the subject.

* * *

_For those readers who were hoping for more explicit scenes, CG and I do have a bonus scene that fills the gap between "Please do" and "Indigo sky." It is VERY explicit, probably rated M or higher. If you're still interested, please PM me or CG for it. (Be advised; I'll be out of town this weekend and won't be able to send the scene out until late Sunday.)_


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